


Unravel

by Udunie



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Character Death, Flashbacks, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Short Chapters, Violence, or flash forwards i guess
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-28
Updated: 2019-02-24
Packaged: 2019-07-03 21:52:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 6,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15827646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Udunie/pseuds/Udunie
Summary: “Let him go!” Derek said, his eyes burning red in the darkness, but there was something hesitant… almost afraid in his voice.“Sorry, but he needs to die,” said the person behind Stiles.Hearing his own voice in his ear was the strangest feeling in the world. But not as terrifying as the sensation of claws piercing his neck.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This will be a weird thing, and not really porny, but at least I will try to update every day, yay?
> 
> All my love to Emma, who is the moon in my sky.

_ “Are you ready?” Alan asked as soon as he stepped into the basement, eyeing him tiredly before wiping the black goo oozing from his nose. _

_ Stiles’ stomach was rolling. The blood in the bucket he was carrying was still warm. It was warm and red and it smelled familiar enough to make a part of him die. _

_ “No,” Stiles said, putting the bucket down next to the vet. They were not ready. They would never be, so they might as well do it now.  _

_ Before they couldn’t.   _

_ For a second he just stood there, his mind blank, carefully not thinking about what he’d done. Then he shook himself. They were ‘all in’ now, weren’t they? He might as well go through with it.  _

_ It wasn’t like there was anything left. _

_ He went back to the door, smoothing his palm over the thick metal. It would hold. Whatever will happen, it would hold.  _

_ He took the crowbar leaning against the wall and jammed it between the handles, grinding his teeth from the strain as he bent it into a knot. He stepped back, examining his handiwork. No going back. Not like they would leave this place alive. _

_ “Alright,” he said, his resolve settling. “Let’s do this.” _

_ Alan nodded, his face unreadable as he dipped his hands in the still steaming blood. _

***

It was a good thing Scotty was so incredibly naive, otherwise he was sure nobody would have even told him that something was going on in the Preserve. 

On a certain level, he understood; he was the squishy human sidekick, and the...  _ pack _ \- if you could even call it that - didn’t want him under their furry feet. Or as they would put it, in ‘danger.’ But that didn’t mean he wouldn’t be there. God knew, the fools wouldn’t be able to keep themselves alive without him.

Yeah, so he got beaten up by Gerard. Big fucking deal. He could still be useful.

The jeep rattled along the path leading to the remains of the Hale house, and he spotted Derek’s camaro parked under the trees, belly deep in the overgrown grass running over the clearing. 

Stiles dearly hoped the others weren’t too far into the woods yet, he didn’t have the nose to follow them in the dead of night.

His leg jiggled as he parked next to the other car. Scott said they heard howling. Stiles immediately thought about Erica and Boyd, but his hope was quickly shot down, because apparently none of them could recognize it. And that could only mean trouble. 

He hesitated for a second, glancing at himself in the mirror. His bruises were already gone, but he still remembered them. Okay, so maybe there was a reason Derek didn’t like him anywhere near the action. But he couldn’t let Gerard’s memory keep him from this. He  _ couldn’t _ .

Stiles got out of his car and headed into the woods.

He barely took a dozen steps before he heard a branch snap behind him, and he flailed so hard that he stumbled into a tree.

“Hello, Stiles,” Peter said, his grin audible in the darkness, making him huff out an annoyed breath, trying to get his heartbeat under control.

“ _ Ohmygod _ , you scared the shit out of me, creepy asshole,” Stiles hissed.

“You shouldn’t be here,” Peter said. “How did you even find us?”

“Scott,” Stiles said with a shrug.

“Of course,” Peter sighed.

“What are you doing here?” Derek growled from his other side, making him jump.  _ Again _ .

“Jesus Christ! Would you guys stop doing that?!”

Derek rumbled something he couldn’t understand and then Scott popped up too, giving him a high five, because he was the only one who could be counted on.

“Have you found it?” Stiles asked. There was barely enough moonlight filtering through the trees that he could see Scott shake his head.

“Nope. But it smells weird, I’ll tell you that.”

Stiles snorted. 

***

They made their way in the Preserve slowly, following a trail Stiles’ senses couldn’t pick up on. What he could pick up on was how tense Peter and Derek were. Scott on the other hand only looked mildly annoyed that he had to be out here in the middle of the night.

Stiles wasn’t foolish enough not to understand that his friend was… still a bit lacking as far as the whole werewolf business went. Sure he could control the shift, but he was nowhere near as good as the Hales.

They would have to work on that.

He was already making up training plans in his head when Peter abruptly stopped. Even with the dim light Stiles could practically see his hackles rise.

“Wait-” Peter said, but before he could finish it, there was someone behind Stiles with a hand wrapped around his throat. He could feel claws on his skin, sharp enough to make his blood turn cold.

Scott stuttered back a step, whatever he was seeing making him pale like a ghost.

“Let him go!” Derek said, his eyes burning red in the darkness, but there was something hesitant… almost  _ afraid  _ in his voice.

“Sorry, but he needs to die,” said the person behind Stiles.

Hearing his own voice in his ear was the strangest feeling in the world. But not as terrifying as the sensation of claws piercing his neck.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: forgot to say this on the first chapter, but this my fav kink: and au in which the Alpha Pack has an actual purpose LOL
> 
> All my love to Emma! <3

“You are making a mistake,” the man with Stiles’ face said from where he was shackled to the wall in the basement under Deaton’s clinic.

Stiles felt nauseous just looking at him, like some twisted nightmare come to life. He touched the white gauze around his throat. There was a dull throbbing where his skin had been broken by his claws, but he had been lucky. So,  _ so  _ damn lucky.

A lot luckier than Scott and Isaac. And even Derek.

Peter was like a statue beside him, watching their captive with cold, calculating eyes when the door opened.

Stiles spun around.

“Are they okay?” he asked Deaton, his voice scratchy with panic. 

“They will live,” the man said, which was a lot less than what he wanted to hear, but more than he dared to hope. “Having Derek with them will help.”

“Oh thank god,” he said. His chest felt two sizes too small since they’d arrived, but now he could breathe again.

The man behind him laughed, letting his head fall back against the hard, concrete wall with a thud that had to hurt.

“What’s so funny?” Stiles hissed at him, his anger boiling to the surface now that his worry was put to rest.

The man looked at him, his eyes hard and sharp and deadly.

“The only reason you’re still breathing is because I literally  _ forgot  _ that Isaac might still be alive,” he said, his words dying on a chuckle.

“Interesting,” Peter said. It was the first thing he said since they arrived, and something in his tone made Stiles still. “Care to tell me why you want to kill your past self? Oh… and why you reek of  _ my  _ blood?”

Stiles watched this…  _ other  _ him as he licked his lips slowly, considering Peter for a long moment.

“Sacrifices had to be made.”

***

_ “So you’ve decided?” Peter asked. His face was gaunt, and Stiles wondered - for a brief moment - how it will feel to see him again, back before… _

_ “It’s not much of a decision,” he said, sitting up on their little cot, still cozy with the warmth of their bodies. Peter was naked - just like him - standing in front of the sink tucked into the corner. A sorry excuse of a bathroom if there ever was one.  _

_ He looked into the cracked mirror above it, catching Stiles’ eyes. _

_ “We could wait,” he said, but his words fell between them, empty. They really couldn’t and they both knew it. Not with what Danny told him. They needed to act. They needed to act before they lost the option to do anything. _

_ Stiles watched him. Just thinking about what he needed to do filled his chest with a dread he thought he left behind long ago. Dread, guilt, disgust. Those were all luxuries they couldn’t afford anymore.  _

_ Peter looked away, rubbing a hand over his chin. Stiles could hear his beard rasping against his palm from the other end of the room. He liked the beard. He would miss it. _

_ He closed his eyes. No. He couldn’t think about that. There was a clank; Peter getting an ugly, old bucket from beside the wall where the ceiling was leaking, sloshing the rain water it had been collecting into the sink. _

_ “You will need this, right?” he asked, not even expecting an answer. _

_ Yeah. Yeah, Alan would need that.  _

_ Stiles was so tired. _

_ “Will you enjoy it?” Peter asked, though it sounded like he was just wondering aloud.  _

_ “No,” Stiles said, standing up. His fingers itched as he let his claws drop and he could feel his eyes changing color, flaring up like an infection. _

_ Peter didn’t turn around. He kept looking at Stiles’ reflection as he walked closer. His hands were gripping the sink until the porcelain cracked under the pressure. _

_ Stiles was right behind him now. Close enough that he could smell the adrenaline rolling off him. When he looked in the mirror again, Peter’s eyes were just as viciously bright with power as his. _

_ “I hope you don’t expect me to go quietly,” he said with a too sharp grin, the glint in his eyes unreadable, but dangerous. _

_ He never did.  _

***

“Sacrifices,” Peter deadpanned, like the word was unfamiliar on his tongue. “I have a hard time imagining myself as a lamb led quietly to the slaughter.”

Inexplicably, the other Stiles smiled, almost fondly.

“No, you were never a lamb,” he said, the corner of his lips twitching. “You are a wolf through and through. We  _ both  _ are.”

Stiles staggered back a step as the man’s eyes changed color. They were not gold, they were not blue. Not even red. 

Violet.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All my love to Emma! <3

“That’s a pretty color on you,” Peter said nonchalantly, but Stiles could see the tense line of his shoulders. Whatever this meant was nothing good if it got the man so on edge.

The other him laughed. Harsh.

“You’ve told me that before. Or in the future. Whatever.”

Stiles swallowed. The future. It was the only logical explanation. As much as it could be called logical. Still, hearing it out loud made him want to throw up.

He remembered seeing something like this on the internet ‘It’s not a bad decision unless your future self comes back to stop you.’ It didn’t sound so funny anymore.

And he wasn’t here to stop Stiles or to talk him out of a mistake. He came here to  _ kill  _ him. A part of him couldn’t stop trembling inside, wondering… What became of him? What did he have to commit for this… person to resort to this?

Stiles tried to look at him, tried to find clues. 

Now that his first shock evaporated, they didn’t look so similar. Or maybe not anymore. This man was older than him. It was hard to say by how much, but a couple of years at least. The buzz cut he had was shorter than anything Stiles ever sported before letting it grow out at the beginning of summer.

He was also thin. His body looked like it burned away everything that wasn’t immediately necessary for survival, while somehow still staying sharp and lethal. 

He had scars too, clearly on show with him dressed only in jeans and a wife beater. He had long ones, short ones, deep scars with ragged edges and smooth stretches of pale, healed tissue. There was one that ran from above his left ear all the way to his eyebrow. Stiles didn’t think werewolves could scar like this.

But, his looks aside,  _ this  _ him almost killed Scott. And it was only thanks to luck that Isaac didn’t have his whole arm torn off his body… even Derek was only alive because of his Alpha healing.

He almost killed  _ Scott _ . Stiles found that to be the most… unbelievable. He couldn’t imagine a reality where he would be willing to kill his brother.

“Don’t like what you see?” the man asked him, his mouth stretching into a grin that - disconcertingly - looked equal amounts of alien and familiar.

“No, I don’t,” Stiles bit out. “I want to know what happened.”

“ _ I want to know what happened _ ,” his future self mocked, his voice high before his face turned grim. “You.  _ You  _ happened. Everything is your fault. Everything is, everything was, and everything will be,” he said, spitting the words into Stiles’ face like a curse or a prophecy or both.

He didn’t… he didn’t know what to do. A horrible part of him, that was there since he was unable to fight off Gerard, since he was unable to… do a lot of things reared up its ugly head, latching onto the words confirming what it’s been always whispering in his ears.

“That’s cute,” Peter interjected, shifting just a tad closer to Stiles. It was barely anything, but somehow it was enough to settle his heartbeat back to the baseline. “But unfortunately we don’t have a shrink at hand to sort out whatever self-hatred issues you’re having, so why don’t we… I don’t know. Stick to the facts? Perhaps?”

The other him kept staring at Stiles for a moment more before he turned his head slowly towards Peter. There was something predatory in the way he moved, like he was ready to launch into an attack any second.

“You want the facts? The Alpha Pack is here,” he said. Stiles had no idea what that was, but Peter went rigid beside him. “They are here for  _ him _ , and when they get him, they will destroy the world as we know it.”

***

_ Stiles saw Alan grimacing from the corner of his eyes as he tore the rabbit’s head off. He didn’t care. Food was scarce, and he was always hungry. _

_ “Theoretically,” he said - like he always did when they were talking about this - throwing the severed head in the overflowing trash can. “How far can we go back?” _

_ “The spell will need more energy the farther we want to take you, but it has to be in your own lifetime,” Alan told him after a pause. He got his little tin case out of his pocket, swallowing one of his black pills. The smell of it made Stiles’ nose burn. _

_ He ran a clawed finger down the belly of the rabbit to cut through the skin. They could eat it as it was with Peter, but Alan didn’t have a stomach for fur. Or raw meat. _

_ “So no killing baby Hitler?” he asked, just to see the man raise an eyebrow at him the way he used to. Alan even rolled his eyes. _

_ “No. And you can’t go too recent either. The ripples would reach us too soon, breaking the power feed.” _

_ Stiles shrugged. There was nothing he could do in the recent past anyway. He thought about Scott. About his face when Stiles slashed Allison’s throat. Yeah, no. That wouldn’t be worth it. He had to stop this at the root.  _

_ He very carefully didn’t think about his father. _

_ “You know,” Alan said quietly, “It doesn’t have to be you. It could be Peter.” _

_ Stiels shook his head, skinning the rabbit with his bare hands, feeling the sinews give under his fingers as he tore at it. _

_ “He won’t be able to do it.” _

_ “He could kill Deucalion,” Alan said, stubborn. That was a new thing. Clinging to life. Putting up fights. Being stubborn. _

_ Stiles huffed out a breath. _

_ “He wouldn’t stand a chance alone against them. No. We talked about this, Alan. We have to go with the least resistance, and that’s not something he could do.” _

_ “Theoretically,” Alan said. _

_ Stiles paused. He didn’t tell him yet. That they were running out of time. And fast. _

_ “No. No more theories. Tomorrow.” _

_ Alan dropped the knife he’d been holding, the blade clattering to the floor. He picked it up slowly, pain radiating from every movement. _

_ “Alright,” he said finally. _

_ Even he knew when he had to give up fighting. _


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, Emma for having my back!
> 
> Also, as my dear Emma reminded me, this is my 100th TW fic! O_O

“What,” Stiles said when the room fell silent. “What’s that? This Alpha Pack?”

His other self rolled his eyes.

“It’s a pack of Alphas, idiot. Led by a man called Deucalion.”

“What do they want?” Peter asked. Stiles noticed his fingers twitch as he crossed his arms.

Shit. Peter was  _ nervous _ .

Stiles glanced over to Deaton. He was standing back, near the door. Keeping to the shadows like he wanted to stay invisible.

Future him cracked his neck, his face blank, like he was trying to buy time.

“Talk,” Peter ordered.

He got a growl in reply before the man grinned, seemingly coming to a decision.

“Alright. You want me to talk, I will. They will be using my spark. Or, well.  _ His  _ spark. I don’t have it anymore.”

“My  _ what _ ?” Stiles asked, his voice going a bit higher than he wanted.

“Ask Alan, he’s known for a while, it’s how you did that little trick with the mountain ash,” their captive said, his eyes cutting over to the vet. It occured to Stiles that he might have acted like he didn’t notice Deaton, but he actually very much did.

He spun around, looking at the man.

“What is he talking about?” he asked, desperately hoping that the vet would say he didn’t know, that he had no idea, that it was all a lie. That wasn’t what he got.

“I will tell you later,” Deaton said, coming forward. His dark eyes were intent as he watched the other him.

“What do they need a Spark for?” he asked.

“They will turn lycanthropy into an epidemic,” his other self said, with fake cheer. “And not just any epidemic, oh  _ no _ , anyone bitten will turn into an Alpha. Can you imagine what would happen to the general population? Who don’t know about the supernatural at all? Because I don’t have to imagine it, I saw it.”

Oh god. Stiles didn’t know what to think. He still remembered what Peter was like. He was a  _ monster _ .

“You seem fine,” Peter interjected airily, but nobody was fooled by his act.

The other him sneered.

“Yeah, I’m  _ special _ ,” he said, spitting out the word. “So fucking special. But you know what happens to most people? To the overwhelming majority of the people? They go mad with the power. Human brains are not wired to handle that. Not even all werewolves can. And that’s what they want. That’s what Deucalion wants. He wants to cull the weak, the betas, the omegas, the humans.  _ Everyone _ who isn’t strong enough to control it.”

The room was silent, and Stiles felt panic inching up the back of his throat, trying to choke him.

His other self looked at him, his eyes still burning that unnatural violet.

“In the future? Allison is dead. Chris is dead. Erica, Isaac, Boyd, Lydia. All dead, because of you. Because of me. Dad is  _ dead _ , you hear me? I killed Peter… I killed  _ my  _ Peter today just so I could come back here and stop it.”

Stiles couldn’t breathe.

***

_ Stiles rarely went close to the border anymore. It was getting too dangerous, ever since the state had been properly quarantined off; the military was stationed just on the other side, and while they didn’t have expertise in killing their kind yet, they already knew that a missile would do the job. _

_ But the Preserve was getting over hunted, and Stiles needed to find food. Not to mention their only lifeline to the outside world. _

_ He snuck under the trees, able to smell the metallic tang of tanks a few miles away. Too close for comfort. But Danny couldn’t do miracles, even with all his expertise.  _

_ He hunkered down behind a small hill, waiting. They had no way to schedule things. So Stiles came here almost every day, waiting. _

_ He lay down in the soft grass, imagining for just a moment that all was right with the world. The sun was shining and there were small, fluffy clouds floating in the sky. He closed his eyes and tried to ignore the sounds of two werewolves fighting in the woods downwind. Both of them new by the sound of it. He imagined at least one of them would be wind up dead. _

_ After he finished here, he would find the other one and see if he had to kill it. _

_ It took almost an hour for him to finally hear the faint, tell-tale buzz. A human wouldn’t have been able to pick up on it, but Stiles was accustomed to the sound of surveillance drones. And he hadn’t been a human in a long time. _

_ The things were everywhere since the federal government got involved in the crisis, though they mostly kept to more populated areas. But not this one. It moved around carefully keeping as close to the trees as it could to avoid detection. Human controlled then. Danny. _

_ Stiles waved to the drone, and it slowly descended, then stopped, hovering a feet away from him. There was something duct taped to its gray body.  _

_ Stiles expected medicine. Maybe a chocolate bar.  _

_ Instead it was a satellite phone. That was new. Stiles felt his chest squeeze tight. It had to mean something bad.  _

_ He sliced the tape with his claws. As soon as he did, the phone started vibrating, the screen blank. _

_ He picked it up without speaking. The voice on the other end was artificially distorted, would have been unrecognizable, if he didn’t know who it was exactly. _

_ “They are evacuating in Nevada, Oregon and Arizona,” the voice said hurriedly, making Stiles suck in a sharp breath. “They are going to start pulling the troops back from the border in a few days.” _

_ His brain was going off in all directions. He thought about this, of course he did, but a part of him couldn’t believe that they would… _

_ “There are still humans-” he started, but Danny cut him off. _

_ “They don’t care. It’s spreading. There are outbreaks in Mexico and Canada too. Some of the infected must have gotten there on the coast... They would rather nuke you themselves than have someone else do it.” _

_ Stiles closed his eyes again, just so he could ignore the edge of his vision going gray. _

_ “I have to go,” Danny said. His tone impossible to read through the distortion. “If you want to do that thing, you have to do it soon.” _

_ The phone went dead in his hands and by the time he opened his eyes, the drone was gone. _

_ Stiles breathed for a second. He had to catch some rabbits before heading home.  _

_ Then he had to burn all his bridges and go back in time. _


	5. Chapter 5

The panic squeezed him until the world went gray and his knees gave out from under him. 

By the time Stiles’ vision cleared up, he was sitting on the stairs leading to the room in the basement of the clinic, and Deaton was crouching in front of him.

“That’s it. Breathe.”

It was easier said than done, but he managed. Now that he didn’t have to look at those violet eyes the pressure in his lungs let up.

“Shit,” Stiles said, sucking down air like it was running out of stock. “What… what do we do? Oh god, I don’t…”

_ I don’t want to become that person. _

It was a nightmare. His future was a nightmare, and still, deep down, he knew it was all true. A part of him knew it with unwavering certainty.

If all of what his other self said came to pass… Stiles closed his eyes, fighting the panic rising again, bubbling up from his guts.

Deaton put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed.

“Stiles. Listen to me. It will be okay. We know now. We can prevent it.”

Stiles laughed breathlessly. 

“You don’t  _ know  _ that.”

Deaton raised an eyebrow. Stiles couldn’t remember if the man ever paid him this much attention before. What did his future self say? That he was a  _ spark _ ? He remembered now. He remembered now, the vet telling him that a spark was needed for the mountain ash to work...

“What am I? What is this spark thing?” he asked, the question burning against his lips, keeping him grounded in the present.

Deaton sighed.

“It’s a person with great magical potential. Druids, emissaries… they have to study their craft, perform complicated rituals. Of course, they need some talent too, but not much more than what the average person has. A Spark, on the other hand, is a force of nature.”

Stiles swallowed, but his throat still felt dry.

“It’s not necessarily good or bad, or anything really. It’s… potential.”

He nodded his head jerkily, jumping when the door opened. Peter had a good poker face, but even he couldn’t hide the paleness of his skin.

He glanced at Stiles, considering him for a second, like he didn’t want to set him off again.

“I’m good,” Stiles said, not very convincing, but apparently just convincing enough.

Peter nodded.

“He says that the government is going to nuke California in his timeline.”

Stiles closed his eyes and concentrated on breathing.

***

Stiles did… stuff. He checked on the others - all of them sleeping in a pile, careful of Isaac’s stitches and Scott concussion - then he went on a nice, long drive.

His brain was filled with white noise, unable to concentrate on any one line of thought from the thousand chasing around in his head.

He wasn’t sure how he ended up back at the clinic with a twenty pack of still-hot chicken nuggets… Peter told him to stay out of the basement, but it wasn’t like he should have expected him to listen.

The door was still open, and he couldn’t see Deaton or Peter anywhere, so he tiptoed his way down the stairs.

He found his future self in the same position, sitting on the floor with his hands chained to the wall. He looked bored, if anything.

“Are you hungry?” Stiles asked, his voice barely wavering.

“I bet you call me ‘future me’ or something like that in your head and it’s driving you crazy,” he said before his eyes fell on the nuggets. “And, oh my god, of course I am.”

Stiles closed the door carefully and sat down by the opposite wall, popping some chicken in his mouth, trying to think. Trying to decide if he was doing something incredibly idiotic or not. Did it matter? He was sure he couldn’t fuck up more than he apparently already did in the future.

“I can’t call you ‘Stiles’ that would be weird,” he admitted. He considered just… eating the chicken and not giving the other man anything, but he couldn’t do that. He had to believe that he was a good person, that he wasn’t at all like...

His future self shrugged.

“I call you Mieszko in my head.”

Stiles frowned. That was something his grandma used to call him when he was small. He’d hated it with a passion. And it always came with cheek pinching.

“I’m not a baby anymore,” he said, throwing a nugget. His other self leaned forward as far as he could, fast as lightning, catching it with his mouth. Some things stayed the same, at least.

“You are. You are a squishy, human baby,” he said, chewing loudly. When he swallowed, he had an expression of utter bliss on his face.

“Oh, come on! You can’t be more than… What? Five years older?”

“Four.”

Fuck. What did that make him? Twenty-one? When Stiles thought about being twenty-one, the thought about legally getting beer. Not… not surviving the apocalypse. Yet here they were.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All my thanks to Emma!
> 
> (and to my foresight of being one chapter ahead of myself, cause today royally sucked, and I wouldn't have been able to update otherwise lol)

He was quickly running out of chicken.

“So,” he asked, throwing another nugget. “How does this work? Time travel, I mean. Wouldn’t it have been easier to go back when I was a baby? Less werewolves around and all that?”

His future self swallowed his food. He looked a bit smoothed out now, with his belly nearly full. But Stiles didn’t make the mistake of thinking he was any less dangerous.

“It’s hard to aim, the further back we go,” he said finally. “Or at least that’s what Alan told me. My Alan.”

“Obviously,” Stiles said with a huff. He couldn’t imagine himself calling Deaton by his first name. It just felt weird. But there were more pressing matters at hand.

“Will you be staying here? Or will you, like, go back somehow?”

The other him laughed. It wasn’t a kind sound.

“No. No to both of that.”

Now that made Stiles raise an eyebrow.

“What do you mean? Then what?”

The man shrugged, shifting to get a bit more comfortable, the chains on his hands clanging.

“I mean that the second I arrived here the future I came from started disintegrating. I will stay either until the shockwaves completely destroy it, or until Alan’s life force runs out - since he’s the one powering the spell - whichever happens first.”

Stiles looked at him, unable to say anything. He couldn’t comprehend it. A whole… a whole alternate universe collapsing in on itself. What about the kids born between now and then? Would they still exist in his future? Or did his future self just… completely destroyed them too?

“Don’t look so shocked. I know it sounds bad, but you haven’t been there. You haven’t seen what I saw, haven’t done what I had to do to stay alive. It’s better this way.”

Stiles shook his head, still feeling numb.

“You don’t know that. You couldn’t kill me, so all of that might come to pass again,” he blurted out finally.

His future self looked at him for a long moment, then glanced away.

“Yeah, I fucked up. It’s not the first time. But maybe I was able to do enough to change things. And now  _ you  _ know that you can go back in time and try again, if things get bad enough… We’d only learned about the spell a year ago, took more than six month to gather enough information to be able to perform it. So you have a headstart, you just have to look for it when the time comes.”

Stiles swallowed, throwing the last nugget at his doppleganger. He wasn’t hungry anymore.

“If. Not when,  _ if _ .”

***

_ “It can’t be done,” Alan said after he finished reading the parchment. Stiles would have liked to see what was in it, but he couldn’t read the language it was written in. _

_ “What do you mean?” he asked, unable to stop a grown from slipping into his voice. Peter shifted closer, his proximity soothing his nerves a bit. _

_ Still. They’d worked so hard to get this fucking spell. He refused to believe that it was all for nothing. They’d bartered away everything of value they had… _

_ “Everything has a price,” Alan said before coughing into his palm. His hand came away black with something that looked almost like tar. _

_ Stiles squeezed his lips together, worrying at the inside of his mouth. Alan looked worse and worse every day. His wounds weren’t healing, and the ‘medicine’ he was taking just slowed down the process of the change, dragging it out, making his body fester. _

_ “What is it?” he hissed finally after the man cleaned himself up with a rag. _

_ Alan shook his head, folding the parchment into a small square. _

_ “Alan,” Peter said. “I think we’ve passed the point of things needing to be… affordable.” _

_ The man glanced at them, his eyes looked feverish, as they always did these days. Then he sighed, the air leaving him in a slow whoosh, like even that hurt. _

_ “This spell,” he started, tapping the parchment with the back of his knuckles, “Will kill the caster, will kill the traveler and it needs a life to be sacrificed just to cast it. Even if we can do it, no one is going to see the results.” _

_ Stiles dug his claws into his palm until he felt the skin break, just to anchor himself.  _

_ “But would it work?” Peter asked, leaning forward a bit. For a second, the light of a surveillance drone flying by the window outside cast his face in sharp contrast. His skin looked too thin. His eyes too bright. _

_ Alan unfolded the parchment, but then folded it again without actually looking at it, like it made him scared. _

_ “There’s no way to know. If it does, one of us has to be a sacrifice, one of us has to cast it and maintain it with his life force, and one of us has to go back, cutting our timeline off from the past and unraveling it… If it doesn’t work, one of us will be already dead, and whatever this spell does will probably kill the other two with the sheer force of it. There’s no guarantee either way.” _

_ Stiles stood, feeling restless, walking the length of their small hideout. Unraveling time. Destroying the world as they knew it. Destroying each-other. _

_ He dragged his claws across the concrete walls, digging them in and making flakes of it fly. _

_ “Please stop doing that,” Alan said, flinching from the sound. _

_ Peter was looking at him like he already knew the answer. _

_ Stiles wished he knew it too. _


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeeeeeeeah, so probably nobody cares about this fic anymore, but here we are lol
> 
> All my love to Emma <3
> 
> (Also, just for the record, I have no idea when this will be updated again, I'm sorry)

“What’s the date?” his future self asked suddenly after they’d been sitting there for a while, chicken gone.

Stiles had to actually think about it. “Well, if it’s past midnight I think the 20th of July? Why?”

The other man closed his eyes, letting his head fall back. There was a muscle twitching in his jaw. “The day after tomorrow. It happened the day after tomorrow.”

Against all reason - against the fact that he now knew about the danger, and would be much less likely to end up in trouble - Stiles felt a shiver run down his spine.

He didn’t know if he should dare to push, but the other him started talking.

“They lured us in. They have Erica and Boyd… and Cora. And we all went running.”

Stiles’ breath hitched at the names. God. Erica and Boyd? He never thought he would prefer to think that they abandoned Derek. He didn’t know who Cora was, but the way his future self called her name made his gut twist with unnamed worry.

“They separated us, sent everyone on a wildgoose chase until I was alone, surrounded by howls in all directions. And then Deucalion came for me.”

He swallowed, his Adam’s apple working in his throat.

Stiles didn’t dare to speak.

“The incantation - the one that steals a spark - needs to be said over your still beating heart,” he said, huffing bitterly. “That’s not fun. At least he showed me mercy and paralyzed me with some claws to the nape of my neck first.”

Stiles shuddered.

“And then…”

“Stop,” Peter said from the door. He looked furious in a cold way. He looked between them before his eyes finally came to a stop on Stiles. The disappointment in them hurt.

“Come on. The others are up and we need to plan.”

***

The second they left the basement, Peter pushed him up against the wall.

“Are you out of my mind?” he asked, his eyes flashing bright and blue. Stiles was scared, but not from the violence - he long came to expect it from the Hales. It was the control. Peter wasn’t like this. He didn’t slam people into walls on the drop of a head. If he had something against you, he plotted your murder for weeks and got you when you least expected it. Or at least that was what Stiles imagined. 

“I’m sorry,” he said, holding his hands up. “But he has information and-”

“He wants to kill you,” Peter hissed. “ _ You _ are the last person who should be alone with him.”

Stiles closed his eyes, his mouth tasting bitter despite the chicken. He knew. He knew. He kept fucking things up, apparently. Always.

***

_ Stiles made a trip to southern California alone. It wasn’t safe. Everything was full of the newly turned, unaware of their strength and crazy with power. But he couldn’t leave Alan alone, he was weak and defenceless.  _

_ And he had to do this alone.  _

_ Peter didn’t agree, of course. He never agreed when Stiles took off on his own, but Stiles was faster than him, even if their viciousness was matched. It was their little game of rock-paper-scissors; fighting out their problems in their hideout, tearing into each other until one of them gave up. It probably wasn’t a healthy way to manage a relationship, but then again, Stiles had to tear out the throat of the last therapist he met. _

_ He made his way towards the ocean, led by the sun and the smell of salt. At least there were less soldiers here, so far from the border. Everyone else, he could take on. _

_ The bag was burning his back. Like an accusation. It felt heavier than it had any right to be, and when he stopped, he could almost hear it whisper, spitting curses at him. Stiles thought it should be silent, it’s been three year already. But apparently it didn’t agree. Or he was just going crazy. _

_ He reached the shore at dawn, everything enveloped in a thick fog that made even his eyes struggle. The Calavera woman was already there with two henchmen, but Stiles couldn’t smell wolfsbane on them.  _

_ Then again, they gave up hunting, turning to… less conventional methods to keep themselves safe. This was a business transaction. _

_ “Did you bring it?” she asked, her voice heavily accented. _

_ Stiles took off his backpack, his fingers clawed around the strap. He knew he had to do it, but a part of him was filled with renewed revulsion at himself. He didn’t think that was possible. _

_ “Did you?” he asked back. _

_ She smiled, taking a single sheet of yellowed paper from her pocket. _

_ “One spell, she said,” holding it up. “For one Banshee skull.” _

_ One Banshee skull. _

**Author's Note:**

> you can find me at udunie.tumblr.com
> 
> Please leave a comment if you liked it!


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